As a Black woman beginning my 20th year as a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, I have spoken out for years about the university’s failure to address discrimination, harassment, inequity, and retaliation faced by faculty, students, and staff.
Yet, despite repeatedly raising these issues with administrators, I’ve been met with hollow words of concern and empty assurances that the university is “looking into it.” Meanwhile, the problems persist. CU Boulder’s leadership is not just complicit in this neglect, it actively enables a culture that protects those in power, leaving impacted students, faculty, and staff — particularly those from historically marginalized groups — to bear the ill-treatment without institutional support.
It has been weeks since the Daily Camera published the investigation “CU Boulder elects not to investigate hundreds of discrimination, harassment complaints,” yet CU Boulder’s senior administration, the University of Colorado system president, and the Board of Regents have remained unresponsive, failing even to issue a statement to the campus community acknowledging the article. This lack of engagement is disappointing but unsurprising, entirely consistent with their typical approach to such issues.
Despite receiving 1,599 complaints in the 2022-2023 academic year, CU Boulder’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (OIEC) formally investigated only about 30 cases. This isn’t accountability — it comes across as apathy. From the evidence and my experience, complaints seem to disappear without action, particularly those directed at deans and department chairs. When sanctions are applied, they are often minor, with transgressors facing little more than superficial consequences, allowing them to continue in their roles without accountability.
In my experience, the pervasive culture of retaliation at CU Boulder discourages many faculty and staff from filing complaints or speaking out. Those who challenge the administration often face professional consequences, including reputations as troublemakers, denied promotions, diminished roles, or poor evaluations that hinder career growth and block salary raises. The message from leadership seems clear: speaking up comes at a cost.
For Black women, the harm carries additional layers of complexity and exclusion. As CU Boulder alumni LeAnna Luney and Cassandra Young (née Gonzalez) detail in their chapter of the anthology “When Will the Joy Come? Black Women in the Ivory Tower,” CU Boulder’s policies, and the staff tasked with investigating and enforcing them, are not equipped to address the daily discrimination and racialized misogyny Black women face.
Even when complaints are filed with the OIEC, the system — and those responsible for overseeing it — do little to protect us. This neglect reflects the broader failure of CU Boulder’s leadership to adequately support historically marginalized members of the campus community.
As Luney and Gonzalez explain, the harm isn’t confined to faculty and staff; undergraduate and graduate students are also caught in this web of institutional neglect. Many CU Boulder students are left without recourse when their complaints against powerful, protected faculty and department administrators are ignored. This systemic failure creates an environment where discrimination, harassment, and misconduct can thrive unchecked.
Also troubling is the protection offered to deans and senior administrators. According to the Daily Camera, 16 complaints were made against deans, but only one resulted in a formal investigation. Even in that case, where the dean was found guilty of retaliation, the individual remains in their position. Why were the other 15 complaints ignored? How many more have gone unreported out of fear of retribution? This lack of accountability is a betrayal of the faculty and staff who work tirelessly to advance CU Boulder’s mission.
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As a professor who has experienced and witnessed these issues firsthand, I have seen the system consistently fail those who need it most. Colleagues and students who speak out against mistreatment by deans, department chairs, or favored faculty are marginalized, their voices silenced, and their concerns dismissed. The systemic nature of this problem makes it impossible to dismiss as isolated incidents.
CU Boulder’s unwillingness to address the widespread concerns about discrimination, harassment, misconduct, and retaliation is more than a failure of policy, it is a failure of leadership. Until the administration is willing to hold itself accountable and protect the rights of staff, students, and marginalized faculty this institution cannot claim to be inclusive or just.
Hillary Potter is an associate professor in the Department of Women & Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a B.A. and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder and an M.A. in criminal justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. Potter’s scholarship focuses on intersectional and Black feminist analyses of the existence of and multifaceted responses to crime and violence. She is the author of “Intersectionality and Criminology: Disrupting and Revolutionizing Studies of Crime” and “Battle Cries: Black Women and Intimate Partner Abuse.”
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